Hate to say it but the Cell sucks, the area sucks, getting there sucks.....We have 1 food stand 2 blocks away and a over priced bar on site (bacardi lounge) So having said that.....We need some billionaire/mayor ;-) to build a great atmosphere by buying up a square mile filling it with restaurants/bars/shops/apartments etc!

What?

Am I in the twilight zone today? We've got someone over in the HOF thread repeating baseless rumors that Frank Thomas juiced, and now we have "White Sox Nation" saying the Cell sucks.

Ownership has kept the Sox from being a big market team, we here at WSI have gone over many times the stupid things done by ownership down through the years that alienated fans which has caused attendance to suffer .

Whatever. People need to get over it. Harry Caray leaving in 1982 is keeping people from going to the park? Come on.

I find going to the brewers stadium easier than wrigley . The cell is not a bad drive for me. I've walked around the comiskey/sox are for 50 years without any problem. Sat in every area even before they removed all those seats. I drive an hour and a 1/2 to support my team I am going to my fourth spring training to see them up close. I believe it is not where anymore but why Sox fans don't support the sox more. Chicago could support two teams but like me many fans support either the sox or the cubs not both. Baseball is played better on the south side according to the records but the many seat remain empty at gametime.. We need to energize our base. How do you get Sox fans enthused I have no idea except for winning.

I don't know how long it will take to make it a Sox town and a big market team but horrible moves like the original Sportsvision, letting Harry Caray go, the horrible upper deck, the White Flag trade and Dynamic pricing are things that will take some time in the fans minds to overcome.

Seriously, are there still people that hold a grudge over Sportsvision, even after JR opened the checkbook after the World Series years and re-signed the entire starting rotation, gave Buehrle another deal, re-signed PK and AJ twice each? Unreal.

Dynamic pricing I'll give you. The other four things, people need to move on. Seriously, Danny Darwin and Wilson Alvarez are keeping people up at night?

I was among the most critical of Comiskey II, and I generally like the newer retro parks. That being said, I don't think the Cell sucks. In fact I like it, am comfortable enough in it, and look forward to my next visit this year. Chicago traffic, always bad has become that much worse since I left the area. Still, is it that difficult to get to the cell? I get it that Chicagoland has spread far and wide. Once upon a time I lived in the far western suburbs and it was quite a haul then. Is it that much harder to get to our park compared to Wrigley? Come on. As for "the area sucks", was it that much better when the park was in the shadow of some of the most forbidding housing projects in the country? Yes, it's not cool and hip like Wrigleyville, but Bridgeport, Chinatown and Armour Square where the park is located, provide some options to eat and drink before and after the game. I love baseball but the last time I was at Wrigley was in 1999, and unless someone wants to comp me I have no plans to go back anytime soon.

LN I agree with you more often than not, but I don't think the Addison option was a good one, and I'm more than happy it did not come to pass. I would have favored the south loop proposal first. In any case, the team has made some good offseason moves with ticket pricing and I hope the fans respond in kind, regardless of where the team is in the standings. Like you LN, I remember when Chicago was really a Sox town.

The South Loop would have been the best but I don't think Reinsdorf and Company explored that option, I think they put Addison at the top of the list.I'm pretty sure they did a major demographic study at the time and found that most of their fans had moved to the south and western burbs and at the same time would have drawn more people from the north burbs, some of those people have never been south of the loop. I also think they were using Anaheim and the Angels as model.
The original Cell was bad and I give ownership credit in turning it into a much better place to watch a game.

__________________Coming up to bat for our White Sox is the Mighty Mite, Nelson Fox.

Read the post right before yours and tell me where I'm that far off base.

If the Sox had been playing in Addison for the past 20 years, they'd be about as irrelevant now as the Kane County Cougars.

Case in point, which nobody ever even considers in discussion, what Chicago media would, on a nightly basis in the summer, drive the hell out to Addison to cover the team? It takes ten minutes to get down to the Cell using Canal Street from downtown. The Sox would get less coverage than any of the other teams, and they'd be the red-headed step child of Chicago sports.

The other issue that people seem to diregard is that the population of the City is growing larger, which wasn't the case in the 70s and 80s. Suburban sprawl has come to a grinding halt. Young people want to live in the city or the nearby burbs.

Yes, the South Loop would have been an interesting location and a cool view of the skyline, but whatever. It's water under the bridge. The product on the field is what counts. See 2006 attendance figures.

If the Sox had been playing in Addison for the past 20 years, they'd be about as irrelevant now as the Kane County Cougars.

Case in point, which nobody ever even considers in discussion, what Chicago media would, on a nightly basis in the summer, drive the hell out to Addison to cover the team? It takes ten minutes to get down to the Cell using Canal Street from downtown. The Sox would get less coverage than any of the other teams, and they'd be the red-headed step child of Chicago sports.

The other issue that people seem to diregard is that the population of the City is growing larger, which wasn't the case in the 70s and 80s. Suburban sprawl has come to a grinding halt. Young people want to live in the city or the nearby burbs.

Yes, the South Loop would have been an interesting location and a cool view of the skyline, but whatever. It's water under the bridge. The product on the field is what counts. See 2006 attendance figures.

I will bet you a dollar to a donut that if you asked JR if he wished the Addison deal had gone through, he would say yes.

Another thing to remember about 3B is that Beckham can play 3rd. If there is a capable 2B out there, we could take him and just move Beckham over and solve the problem (with the offensive hole shifted from 2b to 3B).

Ya, IIRC Beckham's #1 position is 3rd base, right? Install Gordon and his vacuum cleaner glove there, and the comfort and spunk of playing 3rd might translate to .280 at the plate. "Let Gordon be Gordon"

Then, go out and find a 2 bagger with hands of Iguchi and bat of Orta; do what it takes to obtain. I like this idear.

Ya, IIRC Beckham's #1 position is 3rd base, right? Install Gordon and his vacuum cleaner glove there, and the comfort and spunk of playing 3rd might translate to .280 at the plate. "Let Gordon be Gordon"

Then, go out and find a 2 bagger with hands of Iguchi and bat of Orta; do what it takes to obtain. I like this idear.

Gordo played shortstop at Georgia. In the Sox minor league system he played mostly SS with about 16 games at 3B. With TCM at short he was put at 3B when he was called up in 2009 and did very well. He put up some respectable numbers in 2012 for a second basemen with 16 HRs and 60 RBIs. Had he hit around .280 he could have been dangerous. I have a feeling that in 2013 we will see the 2009 version of Beckham.

Seriously, are there still people that hold a grudge over Sportsvision, even after JR opened the checkbook after the World Series years and re-signed the entire starting rotation, gave Buehrle another deal, re-signed PK and AJ twice each? Unreal.

Dynamic pricing I'll give you. The other four things, people need to move on. Seriously, Danny Darwin and Wilson Alvarez are keeping people up at night?

Here is the thing with all of the stuff from Sportsvision, Harry moving to the Cubs, the new ballpark, the strike in '94, the White Flag Trade, etc., while it does not directly hurt the White Sox in 2012 or 2013, it is a lot of self inflicted damage that makes it a lot harder for the White Sox to become as popular as the Cubs, the Yankees or the Red Sox. Had the White Sox not made these mistakes they would not have ceded Chicago over to the Cubs so readily in the late 1980s and early 1990s which means maybe, just maybe the White Sox would have had more people in the park as they were contending in 2010 or last year which means you can keep guys like Buehrle and AJ and even bring in a big name free agent like Pujols. The White Sox can't afford to do that and the reason they can't afford to do that isn't because they don't play in a big enough market, but because they have consistently been penny wise and pound foolish. This policy goes back to the original owner of the White Sox but it has continued under JR and company.

Most people don't remember or know what happened in the mid 1980's. The City of Chicago led by former Mayor Washington wanted to build a baseball stadium for the White Sox in the South Loop at Roosevelt and Clark. The White Sox and the city could not agree on the finances. The White Sox would of payed more in leasing the stadium than what they are paying now at the Cell. The city would of also received the parking and concessions money. The White Sox get the concessions and parking money at the Cell. I don't know what the other baseball teams pay or receive in terms of leasing, parking and concessions money in their downtown ballparks, (St. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Minnesota) but I wish the White Sox could of worked something out with the City Of Chicago and had that stadium built at Clark and Roosevelt in the South Loop. The entire perception of the White Sox franchise would of been different if they were playing in the South Loop.